


Turn Your Back and Walk Away

by ivyspinners



Category: Naruto
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-10
Updated: 2012-10-10
Packaged: 2017-11-16 00:33:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 571
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/533515
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ivyspinners/pseuds/ivyspinners
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>...<i>if you can.</i> Sakura meets an old friend in the forest, like the past rushing to reclaim her again. A scene from Part II in the <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/533502">Layers of Distance</a> universe.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Turn Your Back and Walk Away

The scent of hundreds of acres of pine forest hangs thickly in the air, almost choking in its unnatural potency, and if Sasuke's primary sense was smell (like Kakashi, who hides his weary relief in the pretence of being overwhelmed by the forest) rather than a balance between sight and hearing (like Naruto, now that his claws are again blunt, and the last echoes of Sand lurks in his blue-not-crimson eyes), Sakura knows he would have passed her over while scouting ahead, disguised as she is in the herbs Kabuto has taught her to use.

But Sasuke's weapons are his eyes (not so deadly as hers) and his ears (as sharp as hers) and the incomprehensible sixth sense of being watched; the kunai hooked around his finger clatters on mossy rocks when their gazes meet.

"Sakura!"

"Hello, Sasuke." It is oddly difficult to keep an old, familiar inflection from her voice; the bonds she once treasured but now hates nevertheless refusing to break, even under the weight of her defection from Konoha and her three years with Orochimaru since. Just watching Sasuke now, struggling visibly for words, tugs at the banked remnants of her crush, which she thought buried along with quick-fire temper.

Orochimaru was right: she is not ready. She did not seek her team out (and she knows they were not searching for her either -- Sasuke's shock stays written on his face, even as seconds tick by and her patience thins) and yet coming face-to-face brings back a flood of memories, so Sakura knows she ought to dart along the trees and leave. Wordlessly.

But Sasuke has always been different. Everyone else (almost) she could forget and walk away from before they incited her temper ("YOU IDIOT, NARUTO!" she never said outside the echoing confines of her head, and she never shouted across rooftops in sudden anger) but she could never quite leave him without a smile on her face. On his.

"I'll see you later," she still has to say, and still has to smile at him -- muscles quivering as though she is out of practice. Despite her words, it takes too much concentration just to will her limbs to move.

"Wait --" he starts.

Movement in the corner of her eye -- cleverly disguised among the swaying canopy, but it takes no concentration for the world to be laid bare to her, every motion thrown into sharp relief. She sees every branch above cut out against the blue sky, and so her gaze catches effortlessly onto the two other figures dropping into the rays of dusty daylight -- almost spotlights -- that filter all the way down to moss-covered forest floor. Suddenly, motion is simple again; she takes advantage of it.

They would follow her if they could. Naruto wants his first family back, Sasuke joins Naruto in his desire to save her, and Kakashi would come to keep the other two safe from whatever tricks Orochimaru and Kabuto taught her. But they are in a forest, and her speed has improved, and when she sails far above ground into the giant boughs, it takes almost no time at all for her to disappear into the forest scents (dogs howl in the distance; they cannot follow her footsteps of pine forest herbs) and leave them where they belong. In her past.

Orochimaru was right: she is not ready. She cannot be ready when her nails sting her palms at that thought.


End file.
